Ah, so you have actually have places to live in the US? In the UK, there are no new houses at all in most cities and developers aren't allowed to build new one

Ah, so you have actually have places to live in the US? In the UK, there are no new houses at all in most cities and developers aren't allowed to build new ones because of planning regulation (designed by people who already have houses in that area). Also, remember that the UK is a small island with a fairly large amount of people on it (and remember that population density numbers are skewed by Scotland which is the same size as England but has 7% of the population)...that kind of thing isn't obvious when you live somewhere with infinite land. Pointing to one or two things and saying: "Oh this is so terrible, we need to knock it all down" is not a smart approach. Most European countries have experimented with this (the UK went bankrupt doing this), it isn't a good idea (particularly when you have a system that is already the most successful).